Sunday, July 08, 2012

How long does it take to learn a song?

But how long does it take to really get a song under your belt so you can sing it confidently without referring to either lyrics or sheet music?
There are some people who believe they can’t ‘sing’ because they can’t pick up a song perfectly the very first time they hear it. When I tell them that it takes professional singers many months before a song is truly bedded in, they are surprised.

I tend to teach songs really fast (see How many songs can you teach in an hour?) in the belief that people pick things up more quickly if you keep up the momentum and don’t break songs down into chunks that are too small. Once people have an overall feel for the structure of a song, then we can go back and focus on the details. However, I also believe that “quickly learnt means quickly forgotten”.

In many cases, especially with traditional songs, we are trying to short circuit years of hearing a song and allowing it to sink in naturally. What we are doing is quite artificial.

Remember those songs we learnt as children? They seem to always be there and we have no trouble remembering them. Even many years after first learning a song we can be surprised as we watch the words tumble out of our mouths (see How songs are stored in your brain).

questions, questions ...

I want to know:

how long does it takes to learn a song well? – so that you don’t have to think about it and can really express yourself through it. Months? Years? Can you learn a song in just a day and not forget it the following week?

does more frequent practice help? – I’ve sometimes left a hard song for a while only for it to pop out perfectly some months later, as if my subconscious has been working on it in the meantime.

can you completely forget a song once it’s really well learnt? – or does it always linger somewhere in your brain? You might think you don’t remember a song, but with the right prompt it can re-appear as if by magic.

does it make a difference if you’re an experienced singer? – I find that I pick up songs more easily than when I first started out, but do I remember them any better??!!

About Me

I am a singing workshop leader specialising in unaccompanied harmony songs from around the world. I lead community choirs and run regular singing workshops with a wide range of themes.

I am a member of the Natural Voice Practitioners' Network
and share their beliefs that everybody can sing (so I don’t hold
auditions, anybody is welcome to join) and that nobody should be denied
access to music (hence I don’t use written notation, all songs are
taught by ear).

I founded and currently run the communtiy choir The OK Chorale in Woodbridge, Suffolk.